Happy Easter, to you!

Happy Easter!

I LOVE the toy store scene! How can you go wrong with tap dancing and drums??

Happy Easter to you!
~K

Lenten Rose for Lent

This year the lenten roses are actually blooming during lent.

Don't you just love an early, early, early spring???

~K

Farmers Wife / CW Chronicles / Weekend Update

Happy Tuesday!

Just an FYI for those of you in the Farmers Wife Club

or the Civil War Tribute/Chronicles club

Due to the Lenten season, February and March meetings will be on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays.

Same weeks, just the following evening :)

So, I will see you all on THURSDAY evening, not tomorrow evening :)

Look what I did this weekend....

Yup...it was lots of fun :)

The special someones phone camera is pretty scratched, but you get the idea!

Have a good day!

~K

I've got a secret!

Hint 1:
I love MODA fabric....
If you know me you know that really is no secret.

Hint 2:
The UPS guy brought this to my doorstep today....
note the packaging tape.

Hint 3:
Bakeshop....
bear claws, glazed raised and long johns oh my!

Hint 4:
Brrrrrr!!!!!!

Hint 5:
I have something that won't be in store till Spring :)
Can you guess????
~K

Winter 2012 Newsletter

Good news quilting friends.....the Winter 2012 newsletter is ready for you!

Just click here to see all the new clubs and classes.

Also, did you notice how different it looks???

Yep...new logo and layout. How fun is that!

Over the next couple weeks I hope to feature some of the new clubs offered

and show you the awesome projects they will be working on.

That's all for now-

Stay warm if you're in S. Minnesota!

~K

ps: Did you read up on the big sale happening soon at the shop??

If only I lived in a fairytale...

So, last night while I was cleaning up a little bit in my sewing zone, I threw the movie Tangled in. You see, I've always enjoyed a good Disney movie. Anyhow...I watched this portion numerous times because it simply amazed me...



You see...
1) she cleaned her tower top to bottom complete with waxing the floors in 15 min

2) She baked a pie and then later on she made cookies and still wears a dress size -4

3) She read the same books twice (they looked like long ones too!)...if her "mom" is going to keep her locked up in that tower, the least she could do is hook the girl up with an e-reader and a library card!

4) I estimate that in another 3-7 days she's going to run out of walls / ceilings to paint.....then what??

5) How many hours are in her day and why has the girl not yet learned to quilt??

Enjoy the clip! If your're feeling adventurous, watch the whole movie sometime...it's pretty cute :)
~K

Doodle Stitching

I'm prety excited that it's Monday. You see, I was in a wedding this past weekend and am so thankful that it is finally Monday so I can sit back and relax...kind of. Today through Wed I"m working during the day at my real job and sewin' at the retreat in Austin at night. I've taken to learning hand embroidery and am starting with Doodle Stitching. I have this book...

and a ton of floss....watch out! I'm dangerous and super duper in love with the concept! I've got a little trial run / sample doodle going now...can't wait to share!

Enjoy the Monday!
~K

My very own MacGyver (almost) moment

Happy day after Pumpkin Day!

This weekend I was a prime example of productivity at it's finest....kind of..
Friday evening I worked at the shop as usual and had the pleasure of waiting on the infamous Jo herself ...you know, the writer of one of my favorite blogs, Jo's Country Junction. If you haven't taken the time to parooze her fun stuff, you're missing out! She also (along with the help from her daughter who is also a ton of fun) has written several awesome quilt patterns/tutorials available for free at the Moda Bakeshop. I talked with her for a while and she encouraged me to go out of the box and try something new. I did just that and hope to share more with you about that adventure in weeks and months to come....Thanks Jo!!!!

Saturday I finished my Ruby quilt using a pattern from Little Louise Quilts.

I'm very happy with how it turned out and can't wait to see it quilted as it's headed to the shop today for quilting! When I finished all the Ruby goodness and got the back pieced and the binding sewn together, I also pulled out my Postage Stamp Posies (the Spring Darlene Zimmerman class quilt) blocks and tried to figure out what was next...pretty sure this is another project that got packed up at 80% complete....why do I do this to myself!!! Progress picture coming soon :)

Sunday after church I took a nap...a long one...a glorious one! I now know what being a cat is all about and I must say that it really isn't all that bad. Here is Miss Kitty demonstrating how I spent a bulk of my Sunday afternoon:

(PS: Miss Kitty is not supposed to be in the downstairs bedroom...I evicted her shortly after I took her picture. She looks crabby (like Maxine) because she knew she was in trouble!)

After the nap I put some serious time in on my very first hardanger piece and actually finished all the eyelets and cut it out. I'm pretty proud of this little piece of art and can't wait to start my next little doilie. Here she is in all her glory:

Seriously, I know it's small and not overly elaborate, but I'm so stinkin proud of it! I nailed the doves eyes and all the little eyelets around the edge...I feel like a second grader that just got her license to write cursive.

Then off to play in the community band concert which produced a very interesting / entertaining story that lead me on the path of believing that after all these years of hoping, I was finally going to get to say the dental floss saved my life....yes, a true MacGyver moment. You see, I play the french horn which has rotors...rotors have strings which help them move back and forth so the right sound comes out. Somehow in our quick pre-show run through one string came untied and pieces flew everywhere...screws were missing and my world had ended. For a moment, I thought I could just restring it using dental floss but I never did find one of the screws...but I did have dental floss readily available...thank you Dr. Potache for the little sample floss you gave me which I keep in my Jeep :) Fortunately our concert was in Alden (a suburb of Albert Lea) and across the street from the High School and lucky for me, the HS choir director was there who was able to send her daughter with me along with her keys to borrow a school horn. She was very happy to help me because every year I volunteer my time to play solo horn for the High School choir Christmas Concert. Small school = only one double horn which the beautifully helpful daughter informed me was "..um...really old, really smelly, really dented...and nobody EVER played it". Yes, she was correct, however she didn't know that it was an awesome horn. It didn't look good but like my usual horn, it (labeled FH#7with the good ol' label maker every school uses...I call her 007 for short -James Bond humor- ) was a Conn from the 60's. It looked a lot like this one I found on eBay just now so I could show you a pic...just add a LOT of dents..and LARGE dents at that and you have the instrument du'jour:

I paid an arm and a leg for mine about 7 years ago...yes mine has no dents, is still shiny, has beautiful scrolling on the bell, and doesn't smell...but this one had a very mellow tone quality much like mine and responded just like mine. Also, sweet little choir directors daughter who should remain nameless to protect the innocent, informed me that "just last summer the band director took all the horns down to the car wash and blew them out." I've never heard of taking the "horns" down to the "car wash", but it added an interesting element to my story.So, I played it and it was gorgeous. Moral of the story, I'm trying to buy it from the school for a spare and you also can't judge a book by it's cover. I'm thinkin 50 bucks should get the deal done.

When I got home I washed the horn stink off my hands (seriously, the horn made my hands smelly funky) and started in on the first months blocks for a new club that is going to start at the shop in January that I have committed myself to leading. More on that later...it will be awesome...I promise.

Enjoy the day!
~K

Talk about one creative weekend!

Greetings from my creative zone! This past weekend I fully channeled my creativity that's for sure!
I began working on the feature quilt for the bus trip this coming weekend.


The batik part...not the 30s :)
I think I need another design wall....or just a bigger one!

 I have 1/3 of the blocks done....usually batiks don't appeal to me, but I'm really liking the way these are turning out. Maybe I do like batiks! There will be kits available VERY VERY SOON!!!

And, I stared taking hardanger through community education. I really wasn't anticipating the 6 week commitment but the instructor is a really sweet older lady whom I know from different things around town. Last time I saw her I mentioned that I was interested in learning sometime. Note the key, non-commital words "interested" and "sometime". The day before class was slated to start she called me at work.... here is the direct quote. "yeah, say, it's Helen. What color doilie do you want to make in class tomorrow. White or ivory...I need to know so I can get a starter kit ready for you." Long story short, this fall is not the best timing to be making such a commitment but what the heck. So, Here's how far I've gotten...I know, impressive right ;) The class itself was a unique experiance I will save for another time-

And, as we all already know, I'm a night owl. A lot of times I'm too alert to go to sleep but not alert enough to cut and sew without making ridiculous mistakes. So, I knit or crochet or as of late, work on my ivory hardanger doilie. This past weekend I hit the knitting pretty hard. Note: I am by no means an expert knitter or even a good knitter, but I like doing it so I do. I should have probably taken the knitting class through community education too!

I worked on a scarf that I started last fall. When I took it out Thursday night it was only 6" long. As of Saturday, It was about 36" long and I had stop because I ran out of yarn. Then when I was randomly rummaging through some things, I found another skein so now I can finish....I am one lucky ducky!!!

After traumatically running out of yarn and before miraculously finding more, I packed the scarf away and moved on. I dug out some circular needles (I bought a whole bag of needles at a garage sale for $1.00) and some purple yarn that's been gracing my yarn tote for a few months and started my first ever circular needle project: a baby shawl. It's just a simple seed stitch and so far I'm lovin the circular needles.

So, that's the end of my weekend creativity...
Hope you all were able to have some creative time too!
~K

A quilt for soon to be baby Porter

Soon to be baby Porter's mom is one of my good friends....we walk and laugh together and share the same fascination with baking / canning / home making. So, I've concocted a baby quilt.

I've blogged about it here before and talked a little about the patterns I combined to make this cutie.  I love, love, LOVE the owl :)....he's a hoot!

Can't wait to meet this little blessing!
~K

My little piggy...not retreat related

INTERRUPTION FROM YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED RETREAT RECAP:

Every once in a while, I find pictures like this and wonder how I ever turned out kind of, sort of, in a way, maybe relatively normal....

This is me...

with my piggy-oinker....

with piggy tails....

she was mine,

as were my piggy tails.

Her name was Lucy,

she drank from the spout on my watering can,

she would NOT let me ride her

she said: 

 "hey kiddo- that's why you have a pony"...

she was a little on the porky side,

she LOVED my jelly shoes :)

I loved her...

...she was tasty!

~K